


Professional Courtesies

by manic_intent



Series: Omertà [2]
Category: John Wick (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, That AU where Santino calls in John's marker a lot earlier, The new leader of the Camorra has a discipline problem, continuation of previous fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-26
Updated: 2017-05-26
Packaged: 2018-11-05 03:46:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11005314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manic_intent/pseuds/manic_intent
Summary: John woke up to Daisy whining in his ear and an armful of grumpy mafioso poking him in the ribs, still half-asleep. “Your fucking dog,” Santino growled, and pulled the covers over his head. John got out of bed, yawning, and followed Daisy out of the bedroom through to Santino’s lavish private chambers. They dodged sculptures and antique furniture to the door, feet and paws sinking into plush carpeting.Outside, one of the duty guards raised an eyebrow when Daisy shot out, scrambling to the stairs. Still yawning, John followed her out, PJs riding low on his hips as he got her to the verandah. The sun was just rising. Daisy returned, looking relieved, and they headed back at a more sedate clip, Daisy curling up on an armchair while John retreated back to the bed.Santino cursed him in Italian when John burrowed under the sheets. “It’s ‘bout seven in the a.m.,” John said, merciless. “Rise and shine.”





	Professional Courtesies

**Author's Note:**

> The last of the ficbunnies for this series, I hope... Enjoy?

Tenuto

John woke up to Daisy whining in his ear and an armful of grumpy mafioso poking him in the ribs, still half-asleep. “Your fucking dog,” Santino growled, and pulled the covers over his head. John got out of bed, yawning, and followed Daisy out of the bedroom through to Santino’s lavish private chambers. They dodged sculptures and antique furniture to the door, feet and paws sinking into plush carpeting.

Outside, one of the duty guards raised an eyebrow when Daisy shot out, scrambling to the stairs. Still yawning, John followed her out, PJs riding low on his hips as he got her to the verandah. The sun was just rising. Daisy returned, looking relieved, and they headed back at a more sedate clip, Daisy curling up on an armchair while John retreated back to the bed. 

Santino cursed him in Italian when John burrowed under the sheets. “It’s ‘bout seven in the a.m.,” John said, merciless. “Rise and shine.”

That got him a particularly ugly statement about his testicles. John nuzzled Santino’s throat, ignoring the hands shoving at his shoulders, and relaxed into a heavy sprawl. Santino yelped, trying to struggle free; John let him squirm for a while before manhandling him onto his front, ignoring the indignant swearing and the spirited attempt to knee him in the balls. Pinned, Santino snarled at him, never at his best in the mornings, and John hummed, nipping him on the back of his neck. He wasn’t fooled. Santino was rubbing his ass against John’s firming cock, already hungry. 

“Are you even awake yet?” John asked, mouth pressed against the back of Santino’s ear. 

“ _In culo a tua madre_ ,” Santino snapped, and yowled when John bit him hard at the juncture between neck and shoulder, where the mark would be hidden by a collar. 

“Rude. My mother was a nice lady.” John kissed Santino’s cheek, and waited for the growl. “How about you apologise if you want to get any.” He rolled his hips meaningfully against Santino’s ass.

“Fuck you.” 

“Not what I asked for.” John let go, jerking back as Santino tried to elbow him in the throat, and allowed himself to be grabbed by the shirt and shoved down onto his back, huffing as Santino sat heavily on his belly. “Were you always such an asshole in the morning?”

“Usually people aren’t stupid enough to wake me until I want to wake up.” Santino glowered at him. Tousled and in soft gray silks, the new leader of the globally-feared Camorra did not look intimidating in the least—not that anything in life still actually intimidated John. He squeezed Santino’s firm ass, instead, and Santino pointedly rucked up John’s shirt, raking nails down his flanks and now John was so hard that it _hurt_. Who knew? It was still possible to discover new kinks at a grizzled age. 

“I hate you,” Santino grumbled, though he let John shift him back and grind up against that perfect ass. 

“Yeah?” John groped blindly in the side table for lube and a condom. “Why am I in your bed, then?”

“Not sure.” Santino was slipping back into Italian, his back arched as he rolled his hips, eyes heavy-lidded. “Probably because you have a cute dog. If Daisy would stay with me even when you’re not here things would be different.” 

“You’d find someone else to fuck?” Santino was usually incredibly lazy in bed—John almost always had to do all the work. He eased down Santino’s silk pants and underwear, lubing up a couple of fingers and pressing them in. Still loose from the night. Impatient, Santino braced himself, angling to take John down to the knuckles. 

“That has not… hff… ever been a problem,” Santino said, with gritted teeth, and John could believe that. Terrible morning manners and brattiness aside, Santino was prettier than his sister, with his soft mouth and large dark eyes, the thick curls. John ignored Santino’s grumbling and curses, taking his time, stroking Santino’s slender, curved cock as he stretched Santino out with careful fingers. “Someone I can… ngh… _trust_ , though…”

“Me?” John said, bemused. “Really?”

Santino laughed, rolling his hips against John’s thrusting fingers. “Mm. You can’t trust people who need… aah… something from you. Everyone I meet usually wants something from me. You, though. You don’t let me pay you. You have no marker now holding you here. And still. Here you are.” 

John hummed, adding a third finger, scissoring as Santino squirmed and gasped. “Might have a point there.” 

“I didn’t expect you to stay.” Mornings made Santino honest. He smirked. “Gianna was disappointed.” 

“She’s used to it.” 

“Enough talk,” Santino said, batting at John’s wrist. “And be quick, I have a busy morning ahead.” 

“Heard that before.” John pushed down his pants and rolled on a condom, slicking himself up, but before he could do anything else Santino was screwing himself down, sitting on John’s cock, lips parted, eyes closed. Head bowed, he looked caught in prayer, and John’s answering hands were reverent over Santino’s hips; he traced silent psalms over tensed thighs. He waited, shaky from the effort. It was good—it was always good. 

Once Santino relaxed, John rolled them over, shoving a pillow under Santino’s hips. A kiss would get him bitten, with Santino squirming impatiently on his cock, but he tried anyway, took the mauling, and buried his mouth against Santino’s throat, bracing himself against the headboard with a palm, gripping Santino’s hip with the other as he started to move, deep, punishing thrusts. Santino wrapped his legs around John’s waist, fingers fisted in the sheets, keening. Some days John wondered if Santino had been like this with his previous lovers, so unrestrained, not bothering to hide how much he obviously loved being stuffed full of cock. John doubted it. Sentiment of any sort was a weakness to the business-oriented System. To show weakness in the Camorra was to invite ruin, and Santino’s throne sat on feet of sand. 

It took a few attempts before John finally found the angle that had Santino crying out, loud enough that there was a faint, startled yip from the private quarters beyond. Santino dug his heels into John’s back and John obligingly drove into him, as roughly as he could; Santino would be limping through breakfast. John’s mark, obvious for all too see. He bared his teeth, his breaths coughed in bellowed huffs. Like this, Santino never needed much more to come; he was shaking into it now, writhing, his nails scouring hard enough down John’s back that there’d be weals later even through the fabric. John kissed him for it, got mauled again, kissed him harder anyway, until Santino was pliant. He pushed his hips against that delicious, clenching heat, dazed when spent, staying buried until Santino eventually started pushing at his shoulders. 

“Now I’m tired again,” Santino complained, though he was always so smug when sated. 

“Like you did any of the work,” John shot back, and ‘insolence’ got him bitten again for his efforts.

Rubato

Gianna did not, for the record, actually need rescuing: by the time John and Cassian kicked down the door to the bunker she had been taken to, she had freed herself and had fatally stabbed the guard who was meant to be watching her. With her hairpiece. She _also_ shot John three times in the chest as he came through the door.

“That was painful,” John told her, once everyone’s ears stopped ringing, leaning against the wall and checking the damage. 

“Don’t be such a baby. You’re not even bleeding. That suit’s the Tailor’s work, no? Bulletproof lining?” Gianna turned her attention to Cassian, still scowling. Her hair stuck to her right cheek, glued there by blood, and she was visibly bruised, her fashionable dress ripped at the shoulder, but her eyes flashed fire. “Did you actually need to bring John?”

“Ouch. I’m hurt.” John straightened his suit, flicking out the flattened bullets. Cassian sighed. 

“No, but he wanted to help and I didn’t want to waste time arguing.”

“He wanted to help? Or my brother wanted to ‘help’?” 

“Don’t think we have time for this,” John told her.

“Shut up. I’m talking. And be grateful I only shot you in the chest. I can still shoot you in the head. Cassian?” 

“Wasn’t quite sure,” Cassian admitted. “I kinda ran into him on the second floor.”

“ _He_ didn’t shoot me on sight,” John said. “Look. I’m just here to get you to the Continental. All right? I have very few people left in the world whom I consider friends, and I really don’t like going to funerals.” 

“Living with my brother has rubbed off on you,” Gianna shot back, though she waved them both to the door. “You’re more annoying than I remember.”

“Great.” 

“The 'Ndràngheta has been angling to have our seat at the High Table for years,” Gianna said, as they waded out. “They’ve finally decided to be clever about it. Embedding assassins in our organisation. They’re even considering a temporary alliance with Cosa Nostra. Tch.” 

“Got to do a full security review of our people,” Cassian said, ducking around a corner and squeezing off a shot. John reloaded, still a little disoriented. Working together with someone took getting used to. “Think that’s why your brother sent John. He’s the least likely of anyone to be compromised. ‘Cos he doesn’t give a fuck about anything.” 

“Not true,” John said, angling around, bracing for the shot. The next two gunmen through the breach went down, and he was already moving, twisting away from a shot fired at his face, jamming his pistol under a chin, pulling the trigger. Momentum. He hauled the body in front of him and it jerked in his grip as it absorbed fire from the door, then Cassian was there, doubletaps, chest, head, person behind a counter. 

“Clear,” Cassian said, after ducking through, and John followed, Gianna at his heels. “I meant you don’t give a fuck about High Table politics,” Cassian amended. “Though I’m not sure that you would’ve given enough of a fuck about the Boss here to have come to save her ass if her brother hadn’t asked you to.” 

“Kinda would’ve assumed that you two could handle it,” John admitted. “Sorry Gianna.” 

She sniffed, and motioned them onward. “Where _is_ my darling brother?”

“Also at the Continental.” Compromised clan or not, the no-business rule would make Santino safe enough there. 

“Really?” Gianna pulled a face. “That’s it. We’re going elsewhere.” 

“Please don’t.” John looked to Cassian for help, and Cassian scowled briefly at him before relenting. 

“He’s right. Your brother might be a piece of work but until we work out who all the moles are, the Continental’s the best place for you to be. And whether you like it or not, he _is_ family.” 

“I think I’d rather stay kidnapped,” Gianna muttered, “he’s going to be unbearable today.” She followed them anyway, if with ill grace. Somehow, they made it to the Continental with a minimum amount of road violence, though Cassian’s souped up Maserati was never going to be the same again.

In the foyer, Gianna smoothed down her hair, smiling, dangerous. She took John’s elbow, pointedly, and after a moment’s hesitation, he offered her his arm. His ribs hurt, and he was limping from a lucky graze in his thigh that was still bleeding sluggishly, bruised and too tired for her games, but still he played. The D’Antonios were lethal that way. “I think you should work for me,” Gianna said, as she checked in, Cassian sliding a couple of coins across the counter to the concierge. “I’d pay better than my brother.” 

“I’m not being paid.”

“Who said anything about being paid in coin?” Gianna pursed her lips. “How about another cute dog? Is that what you like now?” 

“No. I’m retired.” 

“You don’t look retired to me,” Gianna said, rubbing gunpowder residue tenderly off John’s cheek with her thumb, which of course was the point at which Santino descended on them, Ares on his tail, looking furious. He dragged his sister off, the both of them already starting to argue in Italian as they turned the corner towards the private conference rooms. 

“Company at the bar?” Cassian offered, from behind John’s shoulder. 

“Not going after your boss?”

“Eh.” Cassian lifted a shoulder. “She’s more dangerous than your boss.”

“He’s not my boss.” John bought the first round at the bar anyway, as they settled in for the long haul. The D’Antonio siblings had legendary squabbles, some of which John had already been unfortunate enough to bear witness to. 

“She’s serious,” Cassian said, after the first round. “She’d really rather you worked for her. Won’t be so bad. Like to think we’re also friends, you and me. While I don’t think Ares likes you very much.” 

“We are. And yeah, Ares doesn’t like anyone but Santino. But I’m not working for anyone.” 

“Santino’s using you, y’know?” Cassian eyed John soberly. “Leveraging your reputation. Lot of the Camorra bosses would’a preferred Gianna at the High Table. They don’t want to go back to a time when the Camorra were trying to kill magistrates with rocket launchers and mostly getting arrested. Santino’s using your name to keep the peace. Intimidating people into keeping omertà.” 

“Figured.” John knew he probably should care, but he didn’t. He drank. 

“And then there’s Cosa Nostra. They think _they_ should have the High Table seat, not the Camorra.” 

“Heard there was trouble there,” John admitted. “Wasn’t Gianna handling it?”

Cassian sniffed. “There’s no ‘handling’ Cosa Nostra. They’ve been kicking around Sicily since what, the 1800s? They’d be around when we’re dust. They’ve just been getting stronger lately. More confident.”

“Not enough seats at the High Table to go around.” It had been one of Tarasov’s main peeves. Operating exclusively out of the USA meant that he was disqualified from being eligible for the Russian seat. And even if the High Table was ostensibly not territorial, it’d worked out that way. An Italian seat, a Russian seat, a Chinese seat, a Japanese seat— 

“You want to stick with Santino, fine. It’s your business.” Cassian said. “But you better watch your back.” 

“That a warning?”

“Call it a professional courtesy,” Cassian said, and bought the next round. By the time Ares showed up to collect him, they were talking comfortably about sports, a topic that John had near zero interest in other than its value as a non-shoptalk topic in general.

-Everything all right?- John signed, as he followed Ares to the lobby. 

She smiled thinly at him. -Your part is done,- she replied, her gestures always economical, and handed him a keycard to a room. 

-Good hunting,- John replied, and she nodded at him as he called for the lift. 

Much later, in bed, John grunted as Santino skated fingers none-too-gently over the purpling bruises on his chest. “Your sister shot me,” John explained. 

“Yes, she told me.” Santino stared at the marks as though personally offended by them. “I had a word with her about it.”

“She didn’t mean it.” 

“Oh, she certainly did. She thought at first that you were there to kill her. If Cassian hadn’t appeared behind you, she would’ve emptied the rest of the clip in your face.” 

“What for? I like her.” 

Santino studied John, his eyes narrowing. “Would you have killed her if I asked you to?” 

What was this about? John tried to parse Santino’s tone—not quite flippant, not quite serious—and his face, blank. “Probably not,” John said finally. 

“Always with the honesty. I hate that about you.”

“What, that I’m honest?” 

“You’re not honest because you care about the truth. You’re honest because you don’t give a damn about sentiment.” 

“Santino—”

Santino prodded John in the shoulder. “So why did you agree to go and fetch my sister?” 

“Didn’t want to have to end up attending her funeral.” 

“Would you have gone to help her if I hadn’t asked you to?” 

“Don’t know,” John conceded. “Probably would’ve depended on whether I thought Cassian was on the take.” 

“Cassian’s loyal,” Santino said dismissively. “My sister’s sure of that.” 

“Pretty sure Ares is clean,” John said, wondering where this was going. “And—”

“And I hate this other thing about you,” Santino cut in. “You’re like a force of nature. Your world moves in straight lines. Something hurts you, you destroy it. You get a target, you destroy it. But the rest of the time, you lay still. A hooded eagle… no, more like a primed gun.” 

John said nothing. Sometimes Santino’s moods bewildered him. It wasn’t Santino in particular. He’d always had difficulty understanding people. It was probably why he’d been so successful as a Marine—and then as a killer for hire. A shrink back in the Marines used to tell him that he had a terminal empathy deficit. 

“If I cross you someday,” Santino said, prodding John again, “I think you’d kill me. Despite everything.”

“… Would take a lot of crossing,” John said, after a pause, and winced as Santino climbed angrily on top, knees digging briefly into bruised ribs. 

“I’ll never give you to my sister. Or anyone else. Do you hear me?”

John nodded, blinking owlishly, tense when Santino kissed him. He often chose stillness when he had nothing essential to say, never caring enough to make the effort to dredge up the right words, the right time. Now he wished that he wasn’t so out of practice at being human. Thankfully, Santino didn’t seem to care.

Sonatina

“Have you seen the David?” Santino asked, as John snuck a peek around the corner. He jerked back as a bullet whistled past, far too close.

“Is this really the time?” John grit out. A squad of Cosa Nostra fixers had attacked at an ungodly hour, and the security perimeter had either collapsed quickly or had long been bought. John hated fighting in PJs, but at least Santino’s bedroom had a small armoury partition with a set of custom Glocks. John might not understand art, but he understood _artistry_ , and in the pistol he was reloading, he recognised the Sommelier’s precision work. 

“It’s always a good time,” Santino said. He was armed, though he was rather more interested in petting Daisy than actually lending a hand. Asshole.

“Who’s David?”

“My God,” Santino said sadly. “Gianna was right. You’re a hopeless savage.” 

“Well,” John growled, as he ducked out, taking down the first man through the door into the private chambers—arm, chest—then the next who tried to dive for cover—shoulder, head, “this hopeless savage is trying to save your ass.” 

“The David is the most famous sculpture in the world,” Santino said, wrinkling his nose. “Created by Michelangelo. Usually resident in Firenze.” 

“Oh. Uh. That’s the one, the big statue with one of the arms up and a small dick?” 

“… I give up on your soul,” Santino said, after an appalled silence that John used to check the dead and then the corridor. One of the D’Antonio guards outside was dead, shot in the head. A bullet hissed past, nearly getting his cheek, and John ducked back out of line of sight. 

“So what about it?” John asked absently, as he motioned Santino over into the chamber, with a gesture for him to stay low. Daisy squirmed, hugged to Santino’s chest, though she stayed quiet. 

“About what?” Santino glared at him.

“The statue. I didn’t think you even liked art. You said your museum in New York was mostly a front.” 

“I’m no connoisseur,” Santino said, in the bitchy way he sometimes got when John said something that annoyed him, “but we’re talking about the _David_.” 

“Sec.” John slipped out, twisting to go on one knee. His first shot caught the woman cresting the stairs, then the man behind her, then he rolled, bullets cutting into the space he’d been in. The man with the Uzi on the ground floor collapsed, clutching at his neck. Shouts and screams and civil war. John breathed in chaos, deeply, and went back. “Probably best that we stay here,” John told Santino. “Defensible position.”

“Until someone fires a missile into the building.” 

“… True, I forgot. You mafioso and your love of rocket-fucking-launchers. Windows breakable in your room?” Maybe they could jump for it.

“No. Security lockdown means the balconies would be sealed. Get me to the garage in the basement.” 

“Going to be tough,” John said, peeking out again. Coast still clear. “Seeing as we don’t know who’s really hostile.” 

“I’ll trust your instincts,” Santino decided, which meant carnage down to the basement hatch, where they found Ares busy gunning down invaders behind the yellow Ferrari. Santino pulled a face as he surveyed the damage, and John offered Ares a nod that she returned after giving Santino a once-over. 

-I’ll stay,- Ares signed. -Clean up the trash.- 

“Where next?” John asked. “Continental?” 

Santino glanced up from where he’d been studying the bullet holes in the flank of the Ferrari. “No. Running to the Continental right after an attack like this is a sign of desperation.” He exhaled. “I’m going to have to go to my sister.” 

“You’re going to make her day, asking her for help.”

Santino glared at him, patience finally worn thin. “I fucking _know_.”

They took the Aventador, even though John was pretty sure it was the most goddamned flashy car in the garage. There had been a supply kit in the panic room attached to the garage, though it only had clothes that fit Santino. “An oversight,” Santino said, as they sped out into the dark, Daisy in his lap. 

“It’s your house, not mine.” John was satisfied with the weapons that had been in the supply kit. 

Santino hummed. “Retaliation’s necessary after this.” 

“I’ve got things in a safe deposit box in Rome,” John said, without thinking, and Santino made a surprised sound, but oddly, said nothing, not even something smug. This _would_ be crossing the line. Not self-defense, not going to the rescue of a friend. John would be returning to an old act, one he’d executed over and over for another breed of mafia: an avenger, a murderer, a reaper.

“You were talking about the famous statue,” John said after a while, when Santino appeared content to just stare out of the car window. 

“The _David_ ,” Santino corrected, with a flash of annoyance. “Yes. I was going to say. It looks perfect, but it’s flawed. The marble used to make it deteriorates more quickly than other marble. And most curiously, it’s threatened by its sheer popularity. The Galleria had to protect it with a special system to insulate it from the vibrations from the footfalls of all its admirers.” 

“It’s hundreds of years old, isn’t it?” John checked the rearview mirrors, wary of pursuit. “Stands to reason that it’s wearing out.”

“That’s not the point,” Santino grumbled. “I was trying to relate an analogy about popularity and the degradations of power to you, but I think it’d be lost on swine.” 

“Probably,” John agreed, and Santino sulked most of the drive to his sister’s estates, over an hour out of Rome. He’d called ahead: a convoy of SUVs met them at the borders, escorting them past winding roads. John tried not to feel tense. At the worst, he could swerve out, take the car in a tight circle—

“I didn’t think that I’d ever need you to do anything further for me,” Santino said, in a quieter tone. “I have Ares, after all. And the others.”

“Cassian said you were leveraging my name. Didn’t mind,” John added, when Santino glanced sharply at him. “You’re still new to the High Table. Things are gonna be shaky for a while.” 

“I can rule the Camorra with my own strength.” Santino said coldly, and was quiet until they reached Gianna’s villa. The siblings disappeared quickly into a private meeting, and Cassian nodded at him in the ornate foyer. 

“Coffee, John?”

“You’re a lifesaver.”

They sat in the walled garden, Daisy sleeping at John’s feet, coffee cups drained on the bench, John dressed in borrowed clothes. John watched the sun rising, slowly, his hands clasped together, calm. The comedown after battle tended to relax him rather than exhaust him. The primed weapon, slotted back into a holster. Waiting to be fired again. Cassian didn’t ask for details, and they sat in companionable silence until summoned back indoors. 

Gianna smiled thinly at John as Santino beckoned John into the drawing room, closing the door behind them both. “Place is probably bugged,” John said, with a glance around, the room just as ornate as the foyer outside—and its twin in the main D’Antonio villa. 

“Doesn’t matter.” Santino was pulling John’s head down, kissing him, hungry, his voice growing hushed. “Ares is cleaning up. But I’m going to go with Gianna to Rome. Call a meeting of the Camorra in the Continental. It’d take time for the relevant heads of each family to come. Some will have to fly in.” 

“Sounds about right.” So it was going to be war, then. And if there was war—

“In the meantime,” Santino said, stroking John’s jaw, “I want to send out my reaper.” Santino looked up, his jaw set, eyes fierce with suppressed temper, and he had never looked more perfect. John held his stare evenly, as a reminder that he wasn’t someone to be easily biddable, waiting, until the first crack of uncertainty showed: Santino straightening up, his hand dropping. Only then did John catch Santino’s wrist, lifting up the palm to kiss his master’s ring. 

“Give me a name.”

**Author's Note:**

> The David Statue and vibrations: http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/culture/la-et-cm-michelangelo-david-statue-florence-20140502-story.html  
> Mafioso rocket launcher stories: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-02-11/italy-arrests-dozens-of-mobsters-from-women-run-mafia-clan/7158328 and  
> http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/police-break-mafia-wall-of-silence-as-bosses-turn-supergrass-2109439.html and many more
> 
> Edit: On a rewatch of John Wick 2 I realized there's an error in this fic: for some reason out of 12 High Table seats, Italy has 3 in canon... Cosa Nostra and 'Ndrangheta already have seats. I feel that's kinda weird... why should Italy get 3 seats when everyone else has one (The Russian, etc)... so I'm not going to correct the error. ;3 Asia by itself would need to have tons of seats, esp given how big the triads/yakuza/etc are... as would South America with its big cartels... then there's also the African gangs, the British firms, Indian mafia etc. 
> 
> \--  
> twitter: manic_intent  
> tumblr: manic-intent


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